Samsung and huawei race to copy apple’s foldable before it even exists

The folding-phone playbook used to be simple: make it tall, crease the middle, charge two grand. Now Apple’s ghost has rewritten the rules before the iPhone Fold is even real, and the competition is tripping over itself to crib from a device that remains vaporware.

Leaked factory CADs obtained by Chinese bloggers show Huawei’s next Pura will unfold into a squat, landscape canvas—exactly the ratio analysts expect from Apple’s long-rumored entry. Samsung’s own “Z Wide Fold,” slated for a summer launch alongside the Fold 8 and Flip 8, follows the same blueprint. Both companies spent years preaching tall inner screens; overnight they pivoted to wide, apparently because Cupertino might.

The cargo-cult problem

Huawei already built the Pura X, a vertical folder that flips open like a makeup compact and feels nothing like anything Apple would ship. It sold out in Shenzhen in hours, never left China, and proved the company can innovate when it stops staring across the Pacific. Yet the next model shelves that daring hinge for a me-too silhouette whose only justification is a product Tim Cook won’t confirm until 2025, if ever.

Samsung is equally exposed. The Galaxy S25 Edge—its own Apple tribute act—landed with a thud last quarter, moving fewer than 300 k units worldwide, according to IDC tracker data. A repeat performance with a $1,800 foldable could tattoo another L on the balance sheet while gifting Apple free marketing: if the copies arrive first, the original must be the real deal.

The cruel irony is that Apple’s dominance won’t hinge on aspect ratios. It will ride on distribution muscle, chip efficiency, and the millions who simply want the logo. Samsung and Huawei already have the hardware chops; what they lack is nerve. Every photocopied render inches them closer to commodity status while Apple waits, unhurried, to collect the laurels.

Wide or tall, the foldable war will be won by whoever dares to stop following and start leading. Right now the scoreboard reads: Apple 0, fear 2.